NHS faces £20m bill for sacked doctor Raj Mattu

Dr Raj Mattu, a whistleblowing doctor from Coventry hospital, has submitted a
claim for damages of more than £6.5 million from the NHS

Dr Raj Mattu, a cardiologist, was suspended for eight years, then sacked, after warning that patients were dying because of cost-cutting practices introduced by a Coventry hospitalPhoto: RICHARD LAPPAS

The NHS could face its largest tribunal payout, and total costs of up to £20 million, over the suspension and sacking of a whistleblowing doctor.

Documents lodged by Dr Raj Mattu, a cardiologist who lost his job at a Coventry hospital after warning that patients were dying on an overcrowded cardiac unit, show he has submitted a claim for damages of more than £6.5 million.

An estimated £10 million has already been paid by taxpayers in the longest-running whistleblowing case in NHS history.

Dr Mattu was first suspended for almost eight years and then sacked by the NHS trust which ran the hospital, which had some of the highest death rates in the NHS.

He was on full pay while suspended and because of the amount of work he did at the then Walsgrave Hospital in Coventry two locum consultants had to be hired cover his position.

NHS bosses hired private investigators in an apparent attempt to discredit him and colleagues said he had been “hounded mercilessly” by hospital managers after speaking out.

Last month an employment tribunal ruled he had been unfairly dismissed on grounds of disability after he was too ill to attend a disciplinary hearing because he was suffering from an auto-immune condition. This means there is no limit on the level of compensation that can be awarded by the judges.

Documents submitted by the cardiologist’s legal team show he has submitted a claim for damages of more than £6.5 million, on the grounds that at 54, after more than a decade without practising as a doctor, he is unlikely to work again.

The bills run up by University Hospitals of Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust included an independent £500,000 QC-led inquiry. In 2007 it recommended that Dr Mattu should be allowed to return to work.

Dr Mattu, who has been left virtually penniless by years of legal action to protect his name, told The Telegraph: “A vast amount of public money has been wasted on my persecution by the trust that ran and now runs the hospital.

“The trust did everything to prolong my suspension and prevent a settlement and when they couldn’t get rid of me by another other means they sacked me in my absence when I was ill,” he said.

Dr Mattu’s settlement is likely to eclipse the biggest compensation deal for a sacked doctor to date.

That was paid out in 2011 when a Leeds tribunal found Dr Eva Michalak, then 53, suffered race and sex discrimination at Pontefract General Infirmary and was awarded £4.5 million.